Idaho’s governor in the news in NZ
The largest daily paper at the south end of the South Island is the Otago Daily Times, published in Dunedin. Our well-traveled host in Omarama (more than 230 km from Dunedin) told me with some pride that each Monday’s ODT includes a section devoted to international news. Sure enough, the Monday paper arrived with a 16-page tabloid insert, Global Focus. The cover story (originally published in USA Today) was about predictions of a return to the Dust Bowl in the United States as a result of global warming.
Flipping through the section over breakfast, I almost dropped my mug of coffee. A photo of Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, wearing blue jeans along with his white shirt, red plaid tie and navy blazer, practically leaped off the page. (His characteristic cowboy boots aren’t visible.) He is pictured with Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and state Sen. Robert Geddes – all looking as if they’d been startled by a sudden noise and were about to bolt from the governor’s office (see below).
The photograph showed the three officials preparing to address reporters about Idaho’s decision to sue the federal government to overturn the health-care bill passed by Congress in March. The photo accompanied an essay by Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation with the headline “The sound of ideologies clashing.” Edwards' article didn’t mention Otter or Idaho’s challenge, so New Zealand readers must have been left wondering why a state best known here for potatoes and ski resorts would be taking the federal government to court over legislation.
I wish that the ODT’s editors had labeled the piece as “commentary” and explained the Heritage Foundation’s political slant. Those were small omissions in an otherwise comprehensive section of world news.
Photo: Joe Jaszewski, the Idaho Statesman, via McClatchy/Tribune
Flipping through the section over breakfast, I almost dropped my mug of coffee. A photo of Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, wearing blue jeans along with his white shirt, red plaid tie and navy blazer, practically leaped off the page. (His characteristic cowboy boots aren’t visible.) He is pictured with Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and state Sen. Robert Geddes – all looking as if they’d been startled by a sudden noise and were about to bolt from the governor’s office (see below).
The photograph showed the three officials preparing to address reporters about Idaho’s decision to sue the federal government to overturn the health-care bill passed by Congress in March. The photo accompanied an essay by Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation with the headline “The sound of ideologies clashing.” Edwards' article didn’t mention Otter or Idaho’s challenge, so New Zealand readers must have been left wondering why a state best known here for potatoes and ski resorts would be taking the federal government to court over legislation.
I wish that the ODT’s editors had labeled the piece as “commentary” and explained the Heritage Foundation’s political slant. Those were small omissions in an otherwise comprehensive section of world news.
Photo: Joe Jaszewski, the Idaho Statesman, via McClatchy/Tribune
posted by Kenton Bird at 10:00 PM
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